---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <11BA5605-759A-4195-B560-73AFCA97AEBD@roscom.com> Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2017 21:12:25 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Daily Report: AT&T Moves Fast to Move Data, Fast No other company owns such a jumble of satellites, wires, cables and wireless towers. Maybe software can unify it all in a profitable offering. By Quentin Hardy AT&T's plan to deliver very-high-speed broadband goes like this: Work on a bunch of different technologies at once, for different kinds of customers, without waiting for international regulators or industrial bodies to do their work. Oh, and this has to be a cheaper way to do business. "It's a multidimensional effort, not for the faint of heart," said John Donovan, the company's chief strategy officer and head of technology and operations. "We're thinking of the evolution of all of our platforms, together." http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/technology/att-high-speed-broadband-5g.html ------------------------------ Message-ID: <579b48b2-8061-49cf-b45d-2f8693fcefe6@googlegroups.com> Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2017 14:12:08 -0800 (PST) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Choosing a Child's First Smartphone On Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 1:34:37 AM UTC-5, Monty Solomon wrote: > "A Child's First Smartphone": what a lovely thought. It's never too > early to start training the little future consumers how to be shallow > and superficial and to think that their worth is determined by the > dollar value of the gadgets in their pocket or purse. Back in 1956 teens were tying up the family phone so much that LIFE magazine ran an article about it. It included a pictorial (begins on pg 102) of one family where the daughter was always on the phone: https://books.google.com/books?id=OE8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA2&dq=life%20bell%20teen%20phone&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q=life%20bell%20teen%20phone&f=false In 1960, Bell advertised extension phones (pg 15) for a teen's room: https://books.google.com/books?id=G08EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA15&dq=life%20bell%20telephone%20teen&pg=PA15#v=onepage&q=life%20bell%20telephone%20teen&f=false This ad (pg 96) from 1961 recommends, "A Princess Phone of her own means privacy for a teen-ager, peace and quiet for parents..." https://books.google.com/books?id=lVQEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA96&dq=life%20bell%20telephone%20teen&pg=PA96#v=onepage&q=life%20bell%20telephone%20teen&f=false In the 1970s, Bell pushed second lines for teenagers, and even had a package deal. I remember my parents being shocked by that--they came from the days where just having a telephone line was a luxury, let alone having two lines. However, Bell was targeting high school age kids. Today's carriers are targeting elementary school age kids. Plus, these phones are not cheap bare bones phones for use in emergencies, but rather sophisticated and _expensive_ high-end units. Even with packages, buying a high-end phone plus an accompanying voice and data plan isn't cheap for several kids. ------------------------------ Message-ID: <e2898aac-21ad-4dbe-ad41-c730e8c172c9@googlegroups.com> Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 12:47:19 -0800 (PST) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: Telex and TWX History On Friday, December 30, 2016 at 8:22:16 PM UTC-5, Bill Horne wrote: > The operator at the 100-speed machine would see the "Restrain" light > come on, and that was their queue to wait until the 60-speed machine > at the other end had printed enough characters so that the buffer in > the WADS office could accept more from the 100-speed machine. Of > course, if the 100-speed machine was sending from its tape reader, it > would stop until the Restrain light went out. Thanks for the explanation. Now I know what the orange lamp marked "REST" was used for on the Teletype 33 with the built in dial. As we used our terminal for computer time sharing, speed control wasn't an issue. > I was curious how this feature worked, and I arranged for a > keyboard-to-keyboard call between our Model 35 and another machine in > our building, both of which were using regular dial tone and were not > part of the TWX network. When the operator of the other machine sent a > "X-OFF" command, which stopped the reader at my machine until he > sent a "X-ON" command, the "Restrain" light did not come on. In > other words, his "X-On/Off" keys would properly control my tape > reader, but did not cause my machine to go into "Restrain" mode. An early time sharing system we used (supported by an IBM 1130) was very slow. When we prepared paper tape input, it was necessary to punch an X-OFF at the end of each line. As the computer read our tape, it would send out an X-ON when it was ready to receive the next line. The 1130 was not a good machine for this service, but I think they got a good deal on it. It was replaced by an HP-2000, which was designed for timesharing. It's BASIC was far superior, and it was much faster. On that machine, when we wanted to enter paper tape input, we gave it a command, and just let the tape fly on in. The 1130 was a (relatively) low-priced machine for engineering and science users. Despite being very slow I/O, it sold well. Presumably, it was faster than someone sitting down with a desk calculator. I believe it had somewhat of an open architecture, allowing it to be utilized for a variety of applications, making it flexible. bitsavers has a lot of material on the 1130: http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/1130/ There's also material on the HP timesharing systems: http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/hp/2000TSB/ [snip] One other note. Originally, our Teletype 33 terminal for timesharing had the built in dial and modem. Using it was simple--one pushed a button, got a dial tone, and dialed the number. One other button disconnected and shut the machine off. The machines were designed for automatic answer so that they could be called and receive a message. These machines were rented directly from Bell, I think at $100/month, including free maintenance. (Let's just say users frequently eating their lunch while using the machine did not help its reliability). These machines were replaced by plain Teletypes with a separate modem. There, one had to put the handset in the acoustic coupler, and could not receive calls automatically. -- Happy New Year! ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20170107040210.GA26399@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2017 23:02:10 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Currituck County NC 911 service experiencing issues with Verizon users Published: January 6, 2017, 9:06 pm EST By Matthew Twist CURRITUCK COUNTY, N.C. (WAVY) - Verizon Wireless service is experiencing technical difficulties with phone circuits, which is affecting some calls to 911 in Currituck County. Verizon says they are currently working to fix the problem. Customers should call Verizon if they have questions about cell phone service. http://wavy.com/2017/01/06/currituck-county-911-service-experiencing-issues-with-verizon-users/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sat, 07 Jan 2017